John J. Longo ate the deer he took from the side of the road in February 2008.

He asked a friend - a Caledonia police officer and taxidermist - to mount its head.

Now, the Court of Appeals has ordered him to surrender the trophy to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, because he never got a permit.

Longo's friend told him he needed to get a permit for the deer; Longo didn't.

A "confidential informant" called the DNR in June 2008 to say Longo had collected the carcass and never got the permit. A DNR warden went to his house, and Longo confirmed the story.

On June 23, 2008, Longo got a ticket for not obtaining the permit.

He fought it.

Longo pleaded not guilty in Racine County Circuit Court and in August took the case to trial before Judge Allan "Pat" Torhorst. Torhorst found him guilty, fined him $1 and ordered him to surrender the deer head to the DNR "upon request."

The judge then set a time limit of Oct. 31, 2008 for the DNR to get the deer head from Longo. If the agency failed to do so by then, Torhorst ruled, the DNR must give Longo a permit to possess the head.

When Torhorst ordered the agency to issue a permit allowing Longo to keep the head, even though it was illegal, the agency decided to appeal.

Longo never responded to the appeal, giving up his right to fight the claim. On Wednesday, the Court of Appeals reversed Torhorst's decision and directed him to order Longo to "return the mounted deer head to the DNR without further delay."

"(Torhorst) had no authority to require us to give a permit to possess a deer (Longo) had no right to possess in the first place," said Michael Lutz, chief counsel for the DNR. "No one in the DNR felt they were in a position to comply with that court order. None of us could in good faith or good conscience allow him to possess something that's illegal to possess."

State law requires a permit to possess a deer. The permit for car-killed deer is free, Lutz said, and all Longo would have had to do to get one was call the Sheriff's Department. When he didn't do that, possession of the deer reverted to the state.

"It was contraband," Lutz said. "He had no right to keep it."

With the appeals court ruling, the DNR is able to go after the deer head. Once the agency has it, Lutz said, he's not sure what would be done with it.

"I have no idea what condition this deer head is in," Lutz said. "If it's a trophy, sometimes we give it to a school. We have an exhibit, a display, of illegally-obtained deer heads where we sometimes put confiscated mounted heads."

Longo was not able to be reached for comment.